The Ancients - Hannibal's March on Rome

Episode Date: July 6, 2025

It was perhaps Hannibal’s greatest gamble — after years of victories, not least his famed trek across the snow-capped Alps, could he strike at Rome itself?In this episode of The Ancients, Tristan Hughes is joined by Dr. Louis Rawlings to explore the dramatic years after Hannibal’s crushing triumph at Cannae. With Rome refusing to surrender despite horrific losses, Hannibal changed strategy in 211 BC and set his sights on the Roman capital. Join us to discover how the Carthaginian genius kept his army alive deep in enemy territory, why Rome’s resilience frustrated him, and how close he came to rewriting history.MORERise of Hannibal:https://open.spotify.com/episode/3ZSg0gwceToyk01XXNJtCbHannibal: Crossing the Alps: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7a4XOqxY8J3GhEaRDwX315Presented by Tristan Hughes. Audio editor is Aidan Lonergan and the producer is Joseph Knight. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.All music courtesy of Epidemic SoundsThe Ancients is a History Hit podcast.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener survey here: https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes and if you would like the ancient ad free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. at the height of his campaigns in Italy. Our guest today is Dr. Louis Rawlings from Cardiff University, an encyclopedia when it comes to the story of Hannibal Barca and it was fascinating just listening to him delve into the nitty gritty important military details of this key event in Hannibal's life. I loved it and I hope you guys do too. It's 211 BC and Hannibal Barca has been fighting the Romans in Italy for the past

6 years. He has marched his army, including elephants, across the Alps, his most legendary achievement. He has defeated the Romans in three massive pitched battles that had resulted in tens of thousands of Romans dead. And yet, the Romans kept fighting. Now Hannibal, far away from his Carthaginian homeland in North Africa, is in trouble. His forces continue to rampage across central and southern Italy, but the Romans act like a hydra. Hannibal defeats one Roman force, but then another one quickly takes its place. In 211 BC, Hannibal therefore decided to change strategy. He would march on the beating heart of his enemy. He would march on Rome.

This is that story with our guest, Dr Louis Rawlings. Louis, Louis Rawlings, Dr Louis Rawlings, it is great to have you on the podcast today. It's great to be here Tristan. And what a topic. We've done Pyrrhus most recently. Yeah. But with you, you are our Hannibal man, our Hannibal Barker man. And today we're talking about, I mean, his march on Rome. We usually think of Hannibal crossing the Alps or just traversing all around Italy, beating the Romans here, there and everywhere. You never really

think about him actually marching on the city of Rome itself, but he did try it. RL Indeed he did. And to get to the point where we can understand why he did it and when he did it, we need to kind of think about what happens in the years preceding that. So this is a story really of Hannibal's trying to sort of capitalise on his great victory at the Battle of Cannae. So in 218, the Carthaginian general, Hannibal, he's crossed the Alps, he started the war with the Romans, he's won three great victories over the following three years. So at the Battle of Trebia, he defeats Romans in the north in what's known as Cisalpine.

That's the winter one, isn't it? With the icy river and the snow and everything. Yeah. And then the following year, he's in Etruria and he takes on Flaminius and ambushes his army at the Battle of Lake Trasimene and more or less wipes that out. And then he advances down the coast to past Rome, springs past Rome, because there was a possibility, I guess, that after the Battle of Trasimene he could have marched on Rome but his army was a bit worn out by the crossing of the Alps still, there was a severe winter in the year before that campaign of 217 and so he really needed to work on his troops health and rearm them and so he goes into Piscinum which is on the Adriatic coast. And so he spends his time in Piscinum and then heading south towards a supply depot at Cannae in

Apulia in 216. And it's at Cannae the Romans try to challenge him and break in once and for by raising this super huge army of eight legions and allies and bringing something in the region of 70,000 troops against Hannibal's army, which was probably around 50,000, 40 to 50,000. We're not entirely sure. And this is early August or July 216 BC. And this is kind of lining up, almost feels the best place for us to start our story today. Ultimately culminating in on his march in Rome, but this almost feels like this is the big battle, this is the climax, this is the tens of thousands of soldiers on either side. Hannibal versus the Romans in Italy on the Plains of Cannae. RL Yeah, and he pulls off this amazing magic trick of essentially ambushing a Roman army

in plain sight on a flat plain with nothing to be seen. Nevertheless, Hannibal manages to surround a Roman army that's nearly twice his size and in the space of an afternoon manages to kill, well, the estimates vary from the sources, but around about 50,000 to 60,000 Romans and allies are killed on this battlefield. So Hannibal kills as many men as he probably has in his own army in this battle and only a few thousand Romans escape this bloody slaughter. There's a stat, amazing stat, that maybe 100 men in every sort of 10 minutes are killed in this battle or possibly even a minute. So it's a tremendous amount and in terms of the casualties this is absolutely crushing for the Romans. So Hannibal at this battle defeats this huge Roman army, kills one of the consuls,

kills loads of other ex-consuls and 80 other senators in the army as well and inflicts this massive defeat. The question is, why does he not march on Rome? Right then. Right there and then. Well, shall we explore that? So he's won this massive victory against the Romans. What is the aftermath? I mean, what does he expect should happen now? He's won this great victory. Surely you must think, oh, the Romans must now capitulate.

What's the thinking following his great success against Rome, can I? Yeah. And if he'd been Alexander the Great and he'd been challenging the Persians, three great victories and Alexander is king of the Persian Empire. He's king of Asia, Lord of Asia. Absolutely. So you'd think that this tiny little Italian state, well, no, it's a big Italian state, but nevertheless, Italy's a lot smaller than the Persian Empire. You think three crushing victories and the Romans would cave in. But Hannibal is a student of Pyrrhus and has studied Pyrrhus' failed campaigns against the Romans

and he knew that the Romans don't easily give up after a defeat. So, Hannibal does in fact eventually send negotiators to try the waters. But before he does that, of course, he is urged by one of his officers, Sir Mahabal, who was a cavalry officer, to give Mahabal the cavalry contingent of Hannibal, which is a large force, because Mahabal claims that he could be on the capital dining in Rome and feasting within three days. Now, is that realistic? The distance between Rome and Cannae is around about 150 kilometres. So this is quite a distance for ancient armies which on the whole can travel around about 10 miles a day. Hannibal's is perhaps slightly faster and tends to catch his enemies off foot, so maybe 12 to 15 miles a day when

everything's going well, but an advance would at least take him a couple of weeks with his infantry. Of course, the cavalry can ride much faster and it is possible that if they did ride day and night, they could have possibly got to Rome within three or four days. But what would they have found? Hannibal doesn't know. He doesn't know if the Romans have got any reserves in Rome. He's generally well informed about Roman affairs. He's got spies in Rome. So, he suspects that there will be a defense. And of course, cavalry are not very good at attacking cities by themselves. So, yeah. All they have to do is close the gates. And what do the horses do? So, in a way, this is kind of a grandiose claim by Mahabhar and Hannibal decides

not to risk his entire cavalry just sending him off and leaving his infantry isolated in the middle of nowhere. There were still Romans around. There's still 15, 20,000 Romans scattered across the landscape. What happens if they get back together? What happens if other forces join them as well? There are other legions poking around in various places in garrisons. They could all be pulled together. So Hannibal also, in terms of even deciding to march with the whole army, would have to face a logistical challenge. It's August.

The crops have been gathered in. Hannibal is potentially marching through hostile terrain and hostile territory. If he gets to Latium, which is south of Rome, all the Latin communities are probably going to remain robustly Roman. And so he's going to be walking essentially through a wasteland where his own forces won't be able to gather any crops, all the crops will be gathered into the various cities. So logistically, this is an impossibility. well. Final point as well is that Hannibal has fought this tremendous victory. His own forces only has suffered only 5,700 or thereabouts, but that is 12% of his entire army. Because we focus a lot on the Roman losses and

absolutely we should with the Bastiff Cannae because it's a disastrous Roman defeat. But it does come at a cost for Hannibal, doesn't it? Especially I'm guessing that infantry line in the centre that had to take all that weight of the Romans pushing forwards, they lose quite a lot of people doing that. RL Yeah, I would say probably the Gauls in the centre in particular may well have lost as much as 25% of their force. There were 20,000 of them there, but they seem to have lost- CB So 5,000. Wow. RL Yeah, 4,000, 5,000. So they've taken the heaviest losses. Psychologically, this army has been decimated. So even though it's won, when we look at statistics of victorious versus losing casualties in ancient battles, generally, victorious contingents lose something between 2 and 5%. The enemy who are defeated tend to lose around about 10% or more. Hannibal's

army, although it's victorious, has essentially suffered the same sort of casualties as a defeated army, statistically speaking across, you know, if you're surveying the sort of losses of ancient armies. So his army is really quite heavily damaged by this victory, and this is a kind of a Pyrrhic victory in a way for Hannibal, and he needs to spend time tending to the wounded, looking out for the exhausted men, gathering more supplies, recuperating essentially. And this is in fact what his council suggests to him. Only Manuel speaks out with this grandiose offer of dining on the capital. The rest of the officers agree with Hannibal that actually they should be looking out for the troops at this point and restoring the wounded and

restoring the army. That's going to take a week or two at least. So time is ticking. Hannibal is never going to get to Rome in time to actually besiege it even if he was able to bring enough forces and logistics to the to the table. So he decides not to go to Rome this year. What he does instead I guess is the interesting question. One of Hannibal's things that he does in the aftermath of all of his victories is to release Roman allied prisoners of war that he's captured after the battles. And he does this again at Cannae. He sends them home and he says, our war is with Rome, our disagreement is with Rome, not you. We've come as liberators. And so we're letting you free and you can go back to your home communities and tell them that Hannibal wants to be your friend. And so he sends off, you know, Tarentines and Campagnans and all kinds of people go

back to their home cities where Hannibal is hoping that they will begin to persuade those cities to join Hannibal. Sorry, and a question to come in there because you mentioned Tarentines and Campagnans and the lot. So as Hannibal is now making his way towards southern Italy, the Roman army that fought them at Cannae, those allied units, were they largely allies from the south of Italy where Hannibal had not yet reached? Hence why Hannibal actually saying this to these allies. They're almost new Roman allies that he's encountering as he's come further south. Will Barron I think to a large extent they are, yes.

They've been drawn from the central region really, particularly for this campaign. And some of them are veterans from the north, but nevertheless most of them are fairly new people from the various areas that Hannibal is now going to try and cause to defect. Now Hannibal has Roman prisoners. So he makes an offer to the Romans. He sends Carthallo, one of his officers, as an ambassador to the Romans with an offer of opening negotiations for peace. You know, the Romans, you've lost. Demonstrably, you've lost this war. So please, you know, let's negotiate a peace. But also, we are quite happy to ransom all of your prisoners.

There's debate in the Roman Senate and the Roman Senate decides that it will actually double down. It's going to not negotiate with Hannibal while he's on Italian soil. The Romans are not going to accept the fact that they have been defeated because when they look at things, you know, the alliance system is still holding together, they still have troops in reserve, they have a very large population, and although they have lost a lot of people in the last three years, they still have plenty more where they came from, as it were. So the Romans decide not to ransom those prisoners, and indeed any of the survivors of Cannae are to be sent to Sicily, where they will serve out their campaigns until Hannibal is defeated,

essentially until Hannibal leaves Italy. The survivors of Cannae are not going to be demobilised, they're not going to be rotated off. Roman armies were levies, so soldiers every year may well have served for the year but expected to be demobbed at the end and go back to their farms and maybe called up at a later time. Obviously the the Hannibalic Wars big period of crisis and we find that armies are kept in the field for years on end. But nevertheless, those who kind of serve a long term are able to return to their farms sooner or later, but not the men of Cannae, the survivors of Cannae. And that includes those prisoners if Hannibal chooses to get rid of them in various ways. If they get back to Rome, they're going to be sent to Sicily and spend their time in military exile.

Mason So those soldiers are kind of sent off, like don't breathe a word of this kind of thing or stay away from the action. Shall we talk briefly about that famous Mahabal quote that he gives at this time? Because actually you've said it there perfectly. Mahabal, although he's best known at the time, you know, the advocate for marching on Rome, and sometimes it's portrayed as like one of these what-ifs in history if Hannibal had actually marched on Rome, in actual fact he was very much in the minority at this time, opposed to Cannae, and you've listed all the reasons why actually it wasn't right for Hannibal to march on Rome at that time. However, Mahabel, in his words, I mean, what does he supposedly say to Hannibal? Well, he says Hannibal, you know how to win a victory, but not how to use one,

which is an incredible statement. And of course, the Romans latch on this, you know, this is very popular in Roman sort of rhetoric thereafter, you know, every schoolboy learns this, this fact, because this is clearly loaded with such precedence if it was uttered at the time or is a statement that was derived entirely from hindsight. So we don't know whether Mahabal said this at the time. But nevertheless, what the Romans like to do and what our pro-Roman sources like to do is always try and take the gloss off of Hannibal's victories. So another example of this is when Hannibal sends his brother Mago back to Carthage to announce the victory of Cannae and to request more

troops to finish the job. And so the Carthaginian Senate is there and Mahabalp pours out this great sack of golden rings that have been taken from all the fingers of senators and the cavalry class, the equestrians, the rich men in the army of cani that have been de-fingered. Summer is finally here, but for those of you just like me who are counting down the days until the leaves turn golden, the nights start drawing in and it's finally acceptable to spend a whole weekend binge watching True Crime in your PJs. After dark, myths, misdeeds and the paranormal can transport you there right now, twice a week, every week.

Tudor murder, ancient ghosts, Victorian mysteries, our podcast has you covered. I'm Maddie Pelling. And I'm Anthony Delaney and we are friends and historians who love to find out about the darker side of history. Join us on the scaffold for Anne Boleyn's final moments. Step inside Tutankhamun's tomb, which is apparently cursed. Watch a jury deliberate the fate of the last three women to be hanged for witchcraft in England.

Find us every Monday and Thursday wherever you get your podcasts, and now on YouTube. After Dark, Myths, Misdeeds and the Paranormal is created by the award-winning network History Hit. There's that famous statue isn't there of Hannibal counting the rings of the senates that he's killed at Cannae. Yeah exactly and so these rings are poured out over the Senate floor and everyone's admiring this, but of course there's inevitably, there's one Carthaginian who stands up, it's Hannibal, a rival of Hannibal's father, traditional enemy of the Barquids, who stands up and says, oh, you know, why do you need reinforcements if you're so close to winning this war? Why haven't the allies changed sides yet?

You know, and so he basically pours scorn on this position, but he's in an absolute minority of one in this, you know, in this story. So it's a kind of common trope that the Romans always insert some kind of speech that tries to take the gloss of Hannibal's achievements at that point. So we have to be careful with Mahabal's quote, whether it's really a Roman construct or a construct of a pro-Roman source, whether Mahabal really said that. Having said that, and I just want to finish on that, Hannibal was a very clever commander because he promoted and we see the evidence of this in a number of debates in his own military council. He promotes free speech and he promotes alternative visions. Because if you can talk things through and argue things, then the decision making

is going to be better if you're challenged than if you just have an autocratic kind of commander who just makes decisions without any consideration. So it is entirely possible that Mahabal did offer this kind of view of the campaign strategy. So where does Hannibal then decide to go with his army? Where's his next focus? Where does he start campaigning next? Immediately, he has opportunities to go to Samnium. So the Samnites are old enemies of the Romans. They joined Pyrrhus in the 270s, 280s, 270s. And Samnium, that's kind of the Highlands, Central Arian, Apennine Mountains area. Yeah, absolutely. Hannibal goes to Samnum because he has this opportunity, I think, to peel off these resentful allies of the Romans, the Samnites. And he gets several of the major tribes to defect

to him. And indeed, it seems from complaints the following year that the Samnites make to Hannibal that he actually acquires a lot of recruits from this army and that from this population. And so that enables him to bolster his army and increase the size of his army. So that's his immediate area of concern is to bring the Samnites over. But then also he tries to descend again

into the plains of Campania. He tried it the previous year when he devastated the Campania plain and so distrust and distress amongst Rome's allies. But this time he goes back properly. He tries to capture Naples and Phelps is a seaport would be really useful for Carthage. Yes, Campania, that's the Naples-Montesuvius area today. So it's sort of the region south of Rome, south of Latium is the next region south on the western coast is Campania. And so he fails at Naples, Neapolis as it was called, but he does get Capua, which is

the principal city of the Campanian plain. It's the most powerful city and its satellite communities as well. And the Capuans, after a bit of thinking about it, decide to join Hannibal. And this is a tremendous, tremendous achievement for Hannibal because it immediately deprives Rome of a large section of soldiers and resources in central Italy and blocks the Romans off from going down the western side towards the south. Hannibal's achievements isn't entirely uniform though. There are certain Campanian cities who stay with the Romans, Nola in particular, which is to the east of Mount Vesuvius, and this kind of controls the inland route south.

Isn't there sort of the Pompeii joins Hannibal, but it's in a kind of neighbour, Nola does not or something like that. So it's like, it's rivalries of the towns, which always seem to happen. One will join Hannibal, the other will stay with Rome. It's kind of almost, it's divided along those lines. Absolutely. And this is one of Hannibal's big problems. Even though he's now going to pursue this policy of dragging allies away from the Romans, he always has to deal with local politics, local rivalries that have gone back centuries. You know, the Romans control these people and have stopped them fighting each other. But you take the Romans away and those old rivals are still bubbling up. Like rival football teams, they hate each other. It's that kind of thing. So what Hannibal finds is a great headache that he only gets

partial control of regions when he moves into them. Some go over to Hannibal, but their local rivals tend to stay with the Romans. And even within communities, that kind of plays out as well. So within communities, there's usually a pro-Roman faction as well as a pro-Carthaginian faction or a pro-Liberty faction, as it were, who think that they can use the Carthaginians to further their ends. And so even within communities, he's able to exploit that to gain access to a number of communities, but his hold on those communities is always a little bit tentative because if the other side get the ascendancy they may go back over to the Romans. We see this on a number of occasions. Briefly on

Nola, Hannibal makes several attempts through the war to capture Nola. It's quite a strategic position. It is really useful for transit through the plains. So controlling Nola commonly seals off the bottom of Campania and opens it up. And the Romans managed to retain control of it for the next, well, for the entire war. But in the next three or four years, Hannibal keeps coming back to try and prize Nola away, but is always thwarted by one particular Roman commander, a guy called Marcellus, who initially gathers together a small force in 216 in a garrison's the place. And then in 215, he's got a legion there and then in 214, again, he's there, always thwarting Hannibal's attempts to capture Nola. So Hannibal does spend a

lot of time on particular strategic locations, But he's sometimes he's frustrated sometimes he succeeds. So in the north of the Campania Plain so after Capua has gone over Hannibal spends some time trying to gather or capture cities in the north of the Plain and sort of the access routes into Campania. One of those places is Casaleninum, which initially rebuffs him and it takes him the winter essentially and into 215 to capture Casalinum. Another place is Petaleia, which is just down the road from there.

He kind of advances on Petaleia. It gives up the first time, but the second time he comes with a bit more intent. And the Petaleians over the winter had gone but the second time he comes with a bit more intent. And the Petalaians over the winter had gone to the Romans and said, please, we need help. Hannibal was coming back. And the Romans, because they have lost so many tremendous numbers of troops and are stretched in all kinds of directions, have to say to the Petalaians, you have to look to your own defense. So they sort of cut off any kind of support. And so the Petulians succumb to Hannibal at that point.

But it's hard work. Hannibal hasn't got an automatic right to these cities. They have to be coaxed, they have to be threatened, and sometimes they have to be attacked in order for Hannibal to make gains in these areas. So Capua is an easy victory, an easy gain, but some of these other cities aren't. And this is the pattern that dogs Hannibal throughout the next few years, in fact, for the rest of the war, that Hannibal tries to acquire these allies for various good reasons and we can talk about those in a second, but is always tempered by these local considerations, these local politics, local inter-communal rivalries, and just sometimes loyalty to Rome just seems to persist. And sometimes the Romans have garrisons in these

places that make them much harder for Hannibal to capture. It's also interesting at this moment how the Romans are picking and choosing their battles almost, or where they clash with the Romans following Cannae. Is this a very clear switch of strategy where they will try to defend certain towns if they have a garrison but with small forces and hold a strategic position? It is no more war hungry senators or consuls, those leading deciding I'm going to gather a new big army, we're going to meet Hannibal on the open field. Does it feel like they've learned their lesson and now it's just kind of small forces to try and hinder Hannibal wherever he can? Or I guess also realising that Hannibal's strategy, it may have that

flaw in it, in that you're trying to wrestle away the Allies, but the Allies just hate each other anyway. Yeah, so it's quite interesting. Rome is obviously not in a very good position to fight Hannibal in 215, early 215. But nevertheless, they put consular armies in the field. So armies of 20,000 men, two legions of Romans, about 10,000 men, and two legions of allies or thereabouts. And they're putting these consular armies in to oppose Hannibal and to watch over him and to bring him to battle if possible. So actually, no, they don't lose their... They don't learn their lesson to a certain extent. They may not be so gung-ho about it, but they're still trying to bring Hannibal to battle in

a decent fight. And if we take the war as a whole, and remember, Hannibal's fought three great victories, he's actually fought four big battles, five big battles maybe, en route and gained these three great victories. Between 216 and 203, the end of the war, Hannibal still nevertheless fights something in the region of 15 to 17 major pitched battles against Roman armies. So they're still going for him. And there's a really good reason for that. If they defeat Hannibal's army, the whole problem more or less goes away. It only takes one decisive victory over Hannibal, warlessly is one, and then it's a case of defeating the Carthaginians elsewhere. But Hannibal is also trying to carry on doing what he's been doing, which is to demonstrate that the Romans can't match him in the field. And if he can defeat Roman armies in the field because they come near him, he's going to go for them.

If the price is right, he's got problems. And his main problem is, of course, not actually manpower because he now can start recruiting from these allies. We've seen the Samnites already sending him troops. And on a number of occasions, we hear of him recruiting quite heavily in certain regions after particularly after defeats. So he can always replace his own army with Italians. Now, predominantly Italians, he's still got some Gauls as well, which he keeps throughout the war. He doesn't really need reinforcements from Africa. He doesn't need Carthaginian reinforcements, but he does receive reinforcement in 215. He receives about 15,000 men and 40 elephants. I was going to ask, he gets more elephants at this time. Yeah, exactly. Because he's lost all of his elephants, he's probably got one

left. When he goes through Kapow, it's him on his last elephant that parade into the city. He's got one elephant left, but he's showing off the capture, you know, him taking over Kapua. But then of course he's replenished with elephants later but it's quite a sight. Yeah, it's quite a sight. Absolutely. Yeah. So Hannibal does come back with elephants. They don't really get much of a narrative role. They do appear in a number of battle accounts, but the quality of our military narratives and battle accounts does decline. One of the reasons for that is the fact that Polybius, our better source, battle accounts does decline. One of the reasons for that is the fact that Polybius, our better source, becomes very fragmentary, just doesn't survive in very much detail anymore. And so we have to rely on Livy, who is militarily not so

savvy and not so acute, but also is very pro-Roman. So there's quite a lot of, you have to be sort of hedging his battle accounts a bit because he always seems to give the Romans glory. So he's trying to take the lustre away from Hannibal's victories even where it's clear that Hannibal's won them. So we have this kind of problem. But yes, he's reinforced from Africa in 250 with money as well. And most of that force doesn't actually join Hannibal but forms a second sort of army in the south. Hannibal's big problem is the Romans are like a hydra, as Pyrrhus' advisor once said. You can cut off one head, you can destroy one army, but two grow up in its place. The Romans have huge numbers of men, but they also have lots of commanders and they turn out to be

generally quite able commanders, particularly after 216 when there's a little bit of vetting, I think, going on. Anybody who's a successful commander is rotated and given an extended command the following year. We see certain successful consuls getting consulship after consulship after consulship as well. People like Marcellus is consul, I think, five times. Fabius Maximus is consul a similar sort of amount of times. These guys are rewarded for success by basically having their commands renewed either as consuls or as proconsuls, which is guys whose consular authority has basically been extended. And the Romans are able to muster many field armies against Hannibal's invasion. So I think in about 212, I think there are seven Roman field armies in Italy alone,

and then there are armies abroad as well. ALICE In Spain and Sicily. STAN In Spain, in Sardinia and Sicily, and actually by then in Greece, because in 215, Hannibal makes an alliance with Philip of Macedon, which the Romans find out about. And that draws a legion to the Adriatic, Necrosis Adriatic to fight in Greece against the Macedonians. So Hannibal is always trying to, I think, to secure along the eastern coast ports potentially for Philip to send aid and bring on his own King Philip the fifth of Macedon. Absolutely. But that never happens. But nevertheless, he does try to kind of move on those places.

So Hannibal's got this problem of having to do with all these different Roman armies. And his own army is pretty much undefeatable as it becomes gradually clearer to the Romans. But his smaller armies that he has, and he has in 215, he has three other armies in the field with him in Italy. Two of those are Carthaginian armies, so small forces detached from his own mainfield army plus these reinforcements from Africa form forces that are campaigning in Apulia, which is on the eastern coast and southern coast of Italy, and in Brutium, which is the far south, the kind of instep of the Italian high hill, if you can imagine the peninsula that way. So those two armies are operating in conjunction with local

allies. So the Brutians bring out an army of about 15,000 which joins one of those armies in campaigning in the south. And Hannibal's got his mainfield army and he's got one other army, which is a campanian army, which doesn't join him but operates independently. Very briefly, it attempts to capture the city of Cumae, another port along the coast in 215, but is identified and intercepted and ambushed at Hamai by a guy called Sumpereonius Gracchus. Now, Gracchus is a very interesting character because his army, he's made consul, but his army is volunteer slaves. The Romans are so hard-pressed

that they have actually started to recruit criminals and slaves who want to fight, essentially. Who those slaves are is an interesting question. They are probably mostly Gauls who have been captured in the early campaigns of the 220s when the Romans were campaigning in South High Ghaul. They are armed from the weapons captured at the Battle of Telamon in 225 and stored in a temple, the Capitoline Temple. So these slaves, who are mostly ghouls, are armed as ghouls and fighting for the Romans. romance. Summer is finally here, but for those of you just like me who are counting down the days until the leaves turn golden, the nights start drawing in and it's finally acceptable to

spend a whole weekend binge watching True Crime in your PJs. After dark, myths, misdeeds and the paranormal can transport you there right now, twice a week, every week. Tudor murder, ancient ghosts, Victorian mysteries – our podcast has you covered. I'm Maddie Pelling And I'm Anthony Delaney and we are friends and historians who love to find out about the darker side of history. Join us on the scaffold for Anne Boleyn's final moments. Step inside Tutankhamun's tomb, which is apparently cursed.

Watch a jury deliberate the fate of the last three women to be hanged for witchcraft in England. Find us every Monday and Thursday wherever you get your podcasts, and now on YouTube. After Dark, Myths, Misdeeds and the Paranormal is created by the award-winning network History Hit. The Battle of Telamon is another battle that happens just before Hannibal arrives in Italy when the Romans are extending their control in northern Italy and they defeat a large army of ghouls. So that is the thing, is that these ghouls enslaved, freed, are now being equipped with the army, potentially the arms and armour of their, maybe not relatives,

but kind of their kin who have been defeated by the Romans more than a decade earlier. So yeah, the irony is not lost, I'm sure. RL Absolutely. And Gracchus is able to use these troops and sort of blood them in this battle against the Campanians, which they successfully do, even though the Campanians number around about 15 or 17,000 or thereabouts. They are attacked while they are encamped and not really ready to fight and basically disperse and suffer heavy casualties. These slave legions over the next three years do a really great service in operating independently, potentially of other Roman

armies as well. So Hannibal's having to deal with lots and lots. It's like whack-a-mole. There's lots and lots of armies out there who are operating. And he's always got to worry about the field armies that are actually allocated to either watching him or engaging him directly or interfering with his operations. But there are three or four or five armies out there doing other things. And what they're doing is trying to prevent Hannibal from consolidating his success in terms of turning allies to defect. So the great advantage of getting these allies for Hannibal, well it's twofold. One is that he gets their resources, so he gets access to the crops, the money, the territories, the bases and the manpower potentially. Although he has to negotiate with each community and set up

terms which tend to be more generous than the terms the Romans had previous. The Romans compelled allies when they were summoned to bring men. Hannibal has to kind of ask for volunteers. So he always has to kind of think about money and employing these as potentially mercenaries rather than as subject troops that he integrates into his force. And that's the deal that he cuts with Capua, it's a deal he cuts with a whole range of other cities as well, that essentially they keep their own officers or they can only serve if they are asked and they are willing to, they can't be compelled to. And sometimes Hannibal is not even allowed to put in garrisons in these towns without the consent of his allies. But nevertheless it

gives him manpower. It also takes that manpower and those resources and those bases away from the Romans. So it's a two-fold thing. The problem with cities, unlike Hannibal who is able to move around the battlefield and Italy foraging and seizing the crops and maintaining his army through plunder if he needs to, cities are static. They provide targets for Roman armies. So whenever Hannibal moves away from an ally that's changed sides, if the Romans can, they will come at that city sooner or later or that community sooner or later. So what then, with that brilliant described context of the situation as those years go

on, so we get to 212-211 BC and I think Campania is once again this melting pot. What is the situation then that will ultimately lead to Hannibal making this decision to march on Rome? Absolutely. situation then that will ultimately lead to Hannibal making this decision to march on Rome. Absolutely. Okay, so yes, Roman pressure has been building in certain areas. Samnites get the brunt of it in 215, 214, 213, they're beginning to fold. Casalinum in the north is beginning to be pressured by the Romans. Roman armies come and eventually they capture Casalina and recapture it. CB It's the border town, isn't it? RL Yeah, it's the border town. It's that one that Hannibal, it's strategic, it's very important. And Hannibal has a garrison of a couple of thousand men there.

It's not a big town, but it's just on a nice, fordable point of the river Volternus. The Romans capture that at the end of 214 and that allows them then to start raiding Campania. So they're not staying necessarily or they're going to their bases at Nola and other places along the coast, but they're also now beginning to put agricultural pressure because they're devastating that the land are preventing the sowing of crops. They begin to put pressure on Capua in particular. And so Hannibal is spending his time, dividing his time, trying to get new allies and exploit Lucania and Brutium and places like that where he's got a lot of sympathy. He's also trying to capture Tarentum in 214. Some of those people that he'd let free at Cannae,

some of the Tarentines came back to him and said, the city is right for the plucking, just come down. If you appear, the city will go over to you and will betray the city. Unfortunately, the Romans get wind of that and when Hannibal arrives outside Tarentum, the Roman garrison is on the alert and the city doesn't go over. So he's kind of frustrated for that. Yeah. So he spends his time partially trying to make new gains and he does make a number of new gains, but also partially going back to Campania to defend it from the Romans and also try and capture Nola which is really irritating him I think.

So eventually by 213 the Romans have got a grip on Campania in terms of being able to stage a full scale invasion in 212 proper with targeting of Capua and maybe a big siege to take the city out. And Hannibal is constantly trying to defend all these different cities and communities now from Roman armies independently operating. His own sub-armies are not very good at dealing with Romans. So there were a couple of victories, but they do suffer big defeats as well. So his smaller armies are defeated on occasion and that makes it very difficult for him to keep reliably folding a sort of strategy, campaign strategy, because he can't quite rely on his own subordinate armies to be successful. In 212 the Romans come with two consular armies and also additional forces

as well. They build up supplies at the mouth of the Volternus which is on the northern border of Campania, so there's a port there that they can use as a supply dam. Castellinum is also used as a staging post for the invasion, Nola is used, Naples, Cuma, all these cities along the coast to the south of Campania are also being used as supply bases as well. And so the Romans are bringing in lots of supplies for a big siege of Capua. They march on Capua in 212 and the Capuans know that they're coming. They know they're coming and they've asked for supplies to be gathered for them. They've asked Hannibal for supplies and he details one of his smaller armies under Hanno to collect supplies near Beneventum, which is a Roman colony and is hostile territory,

but nevertheless is a good access point for Hannibal's control of Lucania and Apulia and all those sorts of areas to bring in supplies through that access point into the Campanian plain from the Apenides. The Campanians are supposed to come with their wagons to collect this stuff. Unfortunately, the Roman generals discover this and they attack Hanoi's force as it's actually foraging and gathering forces and basically disperses it, defeats it, kills maybe 10 or 12,000 men. So it's a big defeat for Hannibal's sub-army, which basically is more or less eliminated. If we trust Livy, Hanno pops up the following year with another army, it looks like it's fine. But nevertheless, it seems to be a significant

defeat. And also the Campanians who had come with their wagons were all captured. So Campanians know that the Romans are coming. They haven't been able to sow their seeds because the Romans have been through depredations have been kind of preventing that. And so they know that hunger is going to come. So in 212, Roman armies turn up outside Capua.

The Capuans are not as well-prepared for siege as they want. And they call on Hannibal to help. Hannibal comes and appears to fight a battle against the Romans, which he wins, but it's not a major victory, and the Romans lift the siege, so it works. One Roman army heads to the coast, another army heads into the Apennine hills. Hannibal follows that army but loses it. It's App as clawliest his army gives him the slip. But he does come across two other armies. Firstly, a slightly weird Roman volunteer army led by a centurion called Centennius, who seems to have 16,000 men with him, who Hannibal manages to surround on a hill and basically dispose of and defeat him in battle. And we don't know how many of the 16,000, if that's a real figure, were killed. But apparently he had as many as two

legions, Roman legions that he'd acquired, plus volunteers. So that's a big defeat. And then almost immediately afterwards, he comes across Flaccus, who had defeated his sub-general at Beneventum and engages him at the Battle of Herdonaea and Hannibal there more or less annihilates the Roman forces there. So in the space of a few weeks, Hannibal kills in the region of 20 plus thousand Romans and allies in these two slightly unconnected engagements. CB You mean is that Flaccus and Graccus? Are they two different people? Yeah, two different people. Ah yeah, so this is really interesting because this guy, Fulvius Flaccus, is Gnaeus Fulvius

Flaccus, who is the brother of the current consul who is besieging Capua, a guy called Quintus Fulvius Flaccus. Goodness, it's getting confusing now. Yeah, I mean this is the trouble. That's why I've not really been basically Hannibal wins quite a few victories in quick succession here. Yeah and that also is something that discourages the Romans to a certain extent but nevertheless. I'm no survivors of her Donia are given the can I treatment in other words they're told to go to Sicily and not come back until Hannibal's left Italy. So anyone to get away are dealt with in this way and Flaccus is prosecuted, which must have been embarrassing for his brother. His brother and the other consul, Apis Claudius, come

back to Capiro at the end of the year and besiege it properly. So Hannibal at this point, having gained these victories in the east of the peninsula, is finally able to get into Tarentum. Now we're not sure whether he gets into Tarentum in 213 or in 212, but he's able to capture this major city, all but for the citadel, which is a Roman garrison holds out on and spoils his kind of the lustre of his objectives. but he now controls the major city of the southeast torrentum at this point. So he gains torrentum, but probably at the expense of being able to defend Capua properly. Because there are two different parts of the Italian peninsula there. Torrentum is in Monte

Toranto, Naples, Neapolis, well Capua, that area, you know, hundreds of miles apart, and he's now got to get back. It's almost like he hasn't even completely taken to Renton. The garrison is still there, but he's to say that he now has that port, which is interesting. But now he's got to get back to Campania to deal with these Romans who've come back themselves to lay siege to Capua. RL And because he's so far away, they've had time to completely surround the city with siege works. So they have contra-validated, they put a wall all

the way around the city and they put gates and everything, you know, it's a proper Roman siege. This is a massive investment. There are the two big Roman field armies there, so there's four legions in two camps. There's also a third army of, I think it's probably one legion, under a guy called Nero, who is to the south as well. So there are at least five legions in this area. The Romans in this year have 22 legions in the field. No, 25 legions in the field. Not all of them are in Italy, but around about 15 or so to 18 are in Italy. So Hannibal is now facing 100,000 Romans in the field at least plus allies. So he can't be everywhere and he can't be doing everything but finally

he gets to Capua. He messengers come to him constantly asking for his support and he tries to replicate what he'd done the previous year which is to drive the Romans off. The Romans are now well established. As Hannibal descends from the north-east, the Roman forces deploy. At the same time, the Capuans try and break out. They've had the signal from Hannibal that this is the moment to act and so they make a big sally against one of the Roman camps. But the Romans are well defended. The Capuans are driven back and are unable to break through. The Cothaginians, a force of Spaniards and elephants, breaks into one of the Romans' camps and runs around and causes mayhem, but is eventually surrounded and defeated. Finally finally Hannibal is

unable to break the siege. So his next move is the wild gamble. Finally, he decides to march on Rome. Well, so it does all the context of the march on Rome. It's a mass, but it's a lot to talk about. But it's still important to cover that because that is ultimately what forces him. It's always he being forced to march on Rome now because it's to lure away those Romans who are besieging Capua or kind of take the stand board. Exactly, exactly. It's a diversionary tactic. If he can threaten Rome sufficiently, then maybe one of these armies leaves Capua. That gives him a chance to double back. He's

always extremely good at double backing and giving armies, enemy armies, a slip and maybe break the siege by dividing the forces. He knows probably that the two armies aren't going to leave, but at least if he can drag one of them away, then his position becomes better. But he knows time is running out for the Capulans, they've run out of food essentially and they are sending him desperate messages. And this is his last throw of the dice. So he avoids marching the sort of obvious route which is controlled by the Romans. He has to go along the edge of the Apennines, along the Liris Valley, and heads, comes at Rome essentially from the east rather than from the south. Volvius Flaccus, the one who's not in disgrace, is able to take about 15,000

Romans from the besieging forces, Romans and allies, force marches them into Rome. So they get there just before Hannibal does, because they take the more direct route. And so when Hannibal makes a demonstration at the Porta Collina, which is the north eastern sort of gate, essentially- So he's at the gates of Rome, he gets to the gates of Rome. He finally gets there and he descends and he makes a demonstration. He has a look, has a proper look to see if he can get into the city. The city is in mayhem. There's panic

everywhere. People are imagining there are some Carthaginian deserters. So there are some Numidians who have changed sides earlier. I think they may well have been a garrison that surrendered and then change sides deserted. But nevertheless, they are being sent to help defend the streets of Rome, but they cause panic because they're the Numidians, they look really distinct. So there's panic in the streets of Rome at this point. But because Flaccus is there, because there are two Roman legions who have been kept in reserve, Romans tend to raise legions in Rome,

two legions in Rome every year to protect the city, and then the following year send those out on military operations. So it's like sort of bringing them up to scratch a bit. So they've got two relatively war legions, but we've got Flaccus' veterans as well coming in. And that's a sufficient enough force to deter Hannibal. So apparently there's supposed to be a battle fought between the two sides. We've only got Livy's narrative really for it. The two sides come together, but then are driven apart by severe weather. And then the following day the same thing happens. And after that Hannibal decides that he's not going to be able to take the city and so heads back through Samnium

into Apulia, down to Lucania, and then up, or Lucania, then Apulia, and then down towards Tarentum to try and finish that off. And he will never march on Rome again? He will never march on Rome again. Because it's always a bit of an anticlimactic episode, isn't it? You can always talk about his march on Rome, but actually you get there, realize they can't really take the city. He doesn't have siege equipment as well, I'm guessing, he doesn't have much of it.

RL Because he's moved very quickly. CB Because he's moved very quickly. And then decides if I'm to beat the Romans, it is not by taking Rome. As you said, it's going back to the strategy that he's had since the beginning, it's taking away those allies. And in a funny way, for Hannibal's whole Italian war, it is cities like Capua and Tarentum that are more important than Rome itself. Absolutely. I mean, if he could have captured Rome, obviously the war would have ended, but it's too well defended. It's got big walls. It's a big population. Even if you just arm all

the able-bodied men in the city, that would have made it very difficult for Hannibal to capture. These really big cities are tremendously difficult to take on. If Hannibal had tried to besiege the city, even if he'd had the equipment, there are several Roman armies out there that could come and play havoc with his logistics and also address him directly. Big cities like Syracuse, like Capua, they need proper serious numbers of troops to be in place for potentially years on end. And, you know, with Capua, even when it was running out of supplies, it lasted quite a few months before eventually it gives in as it learns that Hannibal has had itself. So yeah, it is a real anti-climax. And you think, you know, whether Mahabal was right to kind of ask Hannibal to march directly because that

gamble of trying to get to Rome and cause panic and just diplomatic pressure for the Romans to make peace. At that point, when he had all the cards, or potentially all the cards in his hand, it's difficult to the cards, or potentially all the cards in his hand, it's difficult to kind of, you know, comprehend in a way. If we look at it from what happens with the weight of hindsight in 211, it is a really unfortunate thing for Hannibal really that his only real attempt to march on Rome is at a point when he's forced to and it's actually a really bad option for him. There are stories, of course, again, trying to take the gloss off Hannibal. There are

wonderful stories of Hannibal learning that the day that he arrives, the Romans are actually sending a force out to Spain to carry a war there and they carry on doing that, they just send them off. That sounds entirely unlikely. An even stranger one is that he learns that the bit of land that he's actually encamped on is up for sale in Rome that day, and is sold without any loss of the value of the property. So those kinds of stories are there. They show the sort of pluckiness of the Romans,

that they go, Hannibal is transient here, they will endure him. Of course, he's all written with hindsight, but it's quite an interesting way of undermining Hannibal at every moment. Mason. It is, isn't it? And even if strategically it's not a massive moment in Hannibal's Italian war, by marching to Rome and back, psychologically his decision not to besiege Rome or the idea or the vision of his army marching away from Rome, never to be seen again, is it a turning point? Is it seen as a big moment in the war for the Romans at least? I mean, how big a moment really is it when Hannibal decides actually I'm not going to go to Rome or I'm going

to leave Rome? Well, it's a big moment for history writers of Rome because they're able to create this narrative that you're suggesting, this great humiliation of Hannibal. I don't think it really changes all that much on the ground. I mean, the loss of Capua clearly does. That's a big loss. CB Would that fall very soon after? RL Yes. So Hannibal, when he marches away, within weeks Capua has been defeated. The city is punished very severely. The ringleaders, the ones that survive are dealt with and the government is dissolved,

the land becomes public Roman land. Only people who had collaborated with the Romans prior to the siege were able to keep their property, that kind of thing. So it's really, really severely punished and ceases to be a municipal community essentially for in terms and purposes, an autonomous one that ends. So this is quite a big deal for the Capuans. The ringleaders who survived, the other ringleaders who knew they were going to be punished took poison apparently and it took them a day to die, according to Livy who gleefully relates that. But in terms of the actual war, it's kind of still a grinding stalemate. There are wins and losses. Hannibal in the same year, in the previous year, has already won these great victories and over the next few years continues to win victories

against the Romans. He is pursued but he's still holding his own and there are still options out there for him as well. He's now got Tarentum which is a big, you know, bus in that. If Philip can win against the Romans maybe he can bring support and the war in other parts of the Mediterranean is still going on. I know we don't touch on those at all. I try to keep them out. No, I know. But Hannibal's got, you know, he's got his fingers in pies beyond Italy. Well, Louis, it's taking us several years to get through the Storio-Hannibal's war with Rome, the Second Punic War, but we're slowly getting through it. I felt like this would

be a good chapter to do next between Cannae and his march on Rome and ultimately the end of that but of course there are still so many more years to do isn't there and as you've also hinted at it's not just Italy there is Spain there will be Africa soon as well so we've got all of that still to cover but Louis we should probably wrap up there for the time being and it just goes to me to say thank you so much for taking the time to come back on the podcast. Thank you so much for inviting me, it's always a pleasure Justin. Well there you go, there was the brilliant Dr Louis Rawlings returning to the Ancients podcast to continue the story of Hannibal Barca and his war against Rome, this time covering how he ultimately marched on the capital itself. I hope you enjoyed the episode, let us know your thoughts.

I always love getting Louis back on the show to talk more about Hannibal. He is one of the leading experts on Hannibal and it's such a privilege to have him as a great contact of the Ancients podcast. Last things from me, please follow the Ancients on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps us, you'll be doing us a big favour. If you'd be kind enough to leave us a rating as well, well we'd really appreciate that. Don't forget you can also listen to us and all of History Hits podcasts ad free and watch hundreds of TV documentaries when you subscribe at historyhit.com slash subscribe.

That's enough from me and I'll see you in the next episode.